Seefeel, Fracture / Tied (10" EP)

On 1994's Fracture / Tied, Mark Clifford moved simple drum loops to the foreground of Seefeel's sound.  Each track, which occupies an entire side of the 10" EP, is structured with a simple drum machine loop that repeats from beginning to end.  The drum loops sounded incredibly sterile by the standards of 1994, to give a sense of modernity, but by the extreme standards of digital sounds only a few years later, they sound smeary, with evidence of classic analog circuits in the signal path.  The loops provide propulsion and rhythm, with a lack of meter that situates them far from any possible dance music reference.  Underneath the foreground rhythms, washy atmospheric sounds play in the background.  Everything has a lot of reverb, so the only recognizable source is a female voice on "Fracture".  It's hard to tell how much these parts were performed or programmed to create the subtle textural evolution that lays under the electronic loops.  The simple orange cover, on nice textured paper, foreshadows the austere design style that artists like Alva Noto brought to prominence in album covers, only a few years later.